NASA has long since favored layers of fidgeters over competent engineers.
Triples the cost and doubles the timelines.
Part of the reason there will be no manned flights to Mars.
Buncha leftists built some rockets with government hand outs while pretending to be 100% private and now they want MORE of a pass? Yeah guess what, they are having a hard time make it safe enough for man rating. Screw you spacex, follow the rules everyone else does now that your leftist buddies aren’t in power any more.
All true.
The shambling legions of government bureaucrats have now produced seven years without a human qualified space transportation capability in the U.S.
The shuttle stopped flying in 2011. It is now 2018.
I recall watching Al Shephard launch in 1961, and then Neil Armstrong stepping out of the LEM just 8 years later onto the lunar surface.
In the same amount of time the modern NASA has accomplished exactly on flight of their gold plated capsule, and that was unmanned.
SpaceX, Boeing, Sierra Nevada, Blue Origin all have credible man rated designs in various stages of flight readiness. They will all be flying soon. Or at least be ready: NASA will be the gating factor as to whether some of them go.
But some are being built by guys who don’t need to wait for NASA funding, and they will leave the bureaucrats in the dust.
Apollo 1 fire.
Challenger disaster.
Columbia disaster.
All preventable with better designs or better management.
Should NASA be in charge of safety?
They need a significant RIF to get lean again and a "BRAC" to eliminate a few under-utilized NASA Centers.
Senator Shelby of Alabama chairs the Appropriations Committee’s subcommittee responsible for NASA funding. His name continues to be associated in opposition with any private space operations which will thin the pork appropriated to NASA’s projects.